


his soul was free from sin

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo Amnesty Fills [12]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Drama, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Use, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: There are consequences for sin, and John knows it well.





	his soul was free from sin

Jacob had never quite lost his brothering instincts.  
  
Really, that John called Jacob and Joseph ‘brother’ instead of ‘father’ was an insult to the sheer effort that they had put into keeping their baby brother alive for the first few years of his life. Their father had never changed John’s diapers, or bathed him, or cleaned up his cuts and scrapes, or let him crawl into his bed at night after a nightmare. Jacob had fond, weary memories of waking up in the morning to find toddler-aged John rolling his toy cars up and down Jacob’s back. Connecting that giggling toddler to the bearded, tattooed lawyer that John was today was difficult for Jacob to do. But then, they’d been separated a long, _long_ time, and hey, he wasn’t exactly the (more or less) disgruntled teen brother-dad that John probably remembered Jacob as.  
  
“We have a problem,” Joseph had whispered one day after the three of them had been reunited and he’d revealed his grand religious designs.  
  
“You finally realized that starting a cult is a bad idea?” Jacob had responded in a grunt, still trying to accustom himself to the strange adult Joseph had become.  
  
Joseph frowned, but didn’t take the bait. “John’s using drugs.”  
  
Jacob’s eyes had widened at that. “You’re fucking with me.”  
  
“I’m not. I found needles in his room; I think he’s on heroin. We need to do something about this.”  
  
_Christ,_ Jacob had thought, with the kind of exasperation and anxiety that actual parents must feel when their kids got into shit. How the hell had the cute little kid who’d clung to Jacob once-upon-a-time turn into a fucking _heroin_ addict?  
  
(Scratch that, Jacob knew exactly how the hell it had happened. Good thing the Duncans were dead or Jacob would have hunted them down and slit their throats.)  
  
As it turned out, it was heroin and cocaine.  
  
And alcohol.  
  
And sex.  
  
John had gone full-out hedonist as an adult. But then, that wasn’t unusual for people who got into the sort of lucrative career that John had gotten into. Jacob knew his own shit well enough that he couldn’t really bring himself to judge John for diving headfirst into anything and everything that made the pain stop; Jacob too had been known to down a bottle (or four) of whatever he could get his hands on when the nightmares about Miller got to be too much.  
  
When they’d confronted him, John had been ashamed, had cried like a baby and apologized for being weak. Jacob was not the boy he’d once been, but seeing John break down had hurt something in him that hadn’t hurt in a long time. He wanted to pull John into his arms, crush him in a hug, then lock him in a room and spend the rest of his life guarding it with a fucking machine gun. Jacob had that papa-wolf instinct honed to a sharp point, and it had come back with remarkable speed when he’d seen John’s distress. But time and distance were factors in the here and now, and so Jacob eventually settled on simply putting an arm around John’s shoulders and squeezing him as tightly as he dared.  
  
John had gotten clean. Jacob and Joseph had asked, and so he had obeyed.  
  
It was only once John was off the drugs that Jacob was able to truly appreciate, with no small amount of disturbed discontent, that the manic energy and toothy smile was _John_ and not the cocaine. Jacob ought to have been happy that John was clean and sober (sober enough to be satisfying, anyway) and had a smile on his face; but he couldn’t exactly appreciate it when he knew it wasn’t real. It was the kind of thing you expect from someone who’s going to explode one day.  
  
Jacob had toyed with the idea of finding a doctor, a psychologist, for John. Someone that would be able to help him deal with the metric fuckton of shit the Duncans and their biological parents had put him through. Much as he maybe didn’t want to admit it, being at the Veteran’s hospital had been beneficial to Jacob, and he couldn’t deny his mental state had slipped a good deal after he’d had to leave. But he only toyed, because Joseph had developed Issues with a lot of things since they’d last been a proper family, and psychiatric care was one of those things he was wary about. If Jacob tried to lobby for John to see someone, he’d get pushback and he knew it.  
  
Jacob shelved the idea for the time being. In that moment John was stable and physically healthier than he’d probably been in years, and as long as he stayed that way, he could let things sit as they were.  
  
[---]  
  
“You look like shit.”  
  
“Good to see you too, Jacob.”  
  
John had taken his sunglasses off, and the full effect of his face had taken Jacob by surprise: He was pale, had circles under his eyes, and his hands were shaking noticeably. “Did you sleep last night?”  
  
“Yeah,” John grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Now ask me how well I slept.”  
  
“Think I can figure that out on my own.”  
  
It was Sunday morning and it was coming on ninety degrees, disgustingly humid. It would be even worse in the church, which was an old, ramshackle wooden thing that they all crammed into at least once a week. It didn’t bother Jacob too much, mostly because when you spent as much time in the Middle East as he had (never mind _Georgia_ ), you tended to redefine your definition of ‘too hot’. As long as he wasn’t expected to dress in full uniform and lug around fifty pounds (minimum) of gear and shit, Jacob would deal just fine.  
  
It was John he was having concerns about.  
  
While the rest of the congregation had their eyes on Joseph, Jacob’s were on John. He smiled at all the right moments, but it was weak, strained; his color didn’t get better, only worse; he blinked rapidly, like he was on the verge of falling asleep. More than once, Jacob saw Joseph’s eyes jump to John and linger there, which meant he saw the same things Jacob did. He said nothing, though; drawing attention to John at this point would just embarrass him.  
  
Eventually, they all stood to sing the hymns. It was surprising how quickly many of the lyrics had come back to Jacob after years of avoiding churches and religion. From the corner of his eye Jacob watched John stand, watched his knees wobble and his body sway unsteadily. Standing after sitting seemed to be making things worse for him.  
  
_I need to say something,_ Jacob thought, now not bothering to pretend that he wasn’t watching John. The singing started, and Jacob did not even try to keep up. John, on the other hand, was mumbling incoherently. _I need to do something. I need to do something **right now.**_  
  
And then, right on cue, John collapsed.  
  
He nearly took out the girl next to him (Rachel-something, Joseph had mentioned her a few times) and actually fell behind her, arm and lower back hitting the edge of the pew as he fell. If they’d been anywhere but the front row, he probably would have hit his head as well. Jacob lunged for John; Rachel’s mouth opened in surprise as she stepped back, out of his way; the congregation fell into stuttered silence, because Joseph had abandoned the pulpit and was rushing over as well.  
  
“John, John- Hey, come on, look at me,” Jacob said urgently, patting John’s cheek and trying to rouse him. John’s eyelids fluttered slightly, but he didn’t open them. And now that Jacob was close enough, he could see that John was struggling to breathe. On a hunch, Jacob pressed his fingers to the pulse-point in John’s throat, and was not pleased to find it rapid and erratic. “Joseph, call an ambulance. _Now._ ”  
  
“Jacob-”  
  
“ _Right fucking now, Joseph!_ ”  
  
Jacob heard a few gasps, probably a few people shocked at the language he was using towards their beloved Prophet. Rachel, _bless_ one of the few fucking people with a brain in this goddamn congregation, began to herd people towards the door, asking for them to give John space and privacy. He would have to thank her for that later. Joseph, finally apparently grasping the severity of the situation, rushed into the church’s annex to the one corded phone they had on the compound.  
  
“John, come on, wake up.” Jacob rubbed his chest and shoulders, tried to get John looking at him. He was debating whether or not it would be worth it to wait for the ambulance or just get John into a car and race him to the hospital himself when John groaned and opened his eyes a crack.  
  
“Jacob,” he wheezed.  
  
Jacob breathed a sigh of relief, cupping John’s cheek. “Good, hey, stay awake, yeah? Don’t close your eyes.”  
  
John let out a soft whine. “I can’ _breathe._ ”  
  
“Yes you can, John,” Jacob assured him firmly as Joseph reentered the room. “You’re talking, and that means you can breathe. Don’t talk if you’re having trouble, but stay awake.”  
  
“The ambulance is en route,” Joseph whispered as he knelt down next to them. He smiled at John, scratched his fingers through his hair. “It’s alright, John, you’re going to be alright.”  
  
John looked up at his big brothers, and it broke Jacob to see fear in his eyes.  
  
[---]  
  
The ambulance came within the next ten minutes, and Joseph and Jacob rode to the hospital with John.  
  
John rallied a little after the paramedics strapped an oxygen mask to him, though it could also have been that the ambulance was air-conditioned and it was easier to breathe in general.  
  
“Any medical history we should be aware of?” One of the paramedics asked as she started an IV.  
  
“Drug addiction,” Jacob said. “Heroin and cocaine.”  
  
“He hasn’t used in two years,” Joseph added.  
  
“Does he have any allergies?”  
  
“None that we’re aware of,” Joseph responded.  
  
John groggily hit Joseph’s knee with his hand. The paramedic lifted the mask so he could speak. “Sulfur,” John croaked. “Allergic to sulfur.” Those few words seemed to take it out of him, and he wheezed when the mask was replaced.  
  
“How old is he?” The paramedic continued.  
  
“Twenty-five.”  
  
The paramedic frowned. Jacob wasn’t a doctor, and couldn’t read the equipment around him to save his life, but he had a feeling that whatever the paramedic was seeing wasn’t something she associated with a man John’s age.  
  
All the while, John kept his eyes on his brothers. Jacob had his little brother’s free hand in his, and John didn’t even flinch when the needle for the IV went into the other arm. Jacob squeezed his fingers gently, and John groaned. “Jake,” he croaked from beneath the oxygen mask. “Jake, I don’t feel good.”  
  
Jacob wanted to vomit.  
  
“‘S alright, John,” He said hoarsely. “You’re alright.”  
   
[---]  
   
Jacob and Joseph spent two hours in the hospital’s waiting room in almost complete silence.  
  
But for that time, even without speaking, Joseph came closest to being the little brother he’d once been to Jacob. He sat so close to him that their arms pressed together, and his head rolled to rest on Jacob’s shoulder; nowadays this sort of relaxed posture was too undignified for a Prophet of God, made him look a little too normal to lean on his big brother for comfort, but Jacob didn’t ruin it by pointing it out.  
  
Jacob was thirsty, and he had the mother of all headaches, but he didn’t move from that chair until the doctor came out.  
  
The woman led them to John’s room, talking about what had happened to him and most of it went completely over Jacob’s head. It took everything in him not to slam his fist on the nearest wall and demand that she just say, in _plain English, please,_ if John was going to die or not.  
  
Joseph, thankfully, seemed to understand some of the terminology a bit better and got there first. “So, John should be alright?”  
  
The doctor nodded, not noticing the long, relieved exhale that Jacob released. “We’re going to keep him for a few days to monitor him, and we’ll be working out a regimen of medication and other self-care he’ll need to do at home to keep this in check.” Jacob felt all the energy drain from him. John was safe, he could calm down, and it was maybe best if he found a place to sit before they had to admit _him_ to the hospital.  
  
John seemed to be asleep when they came into the room, but his eyes opened slightly when he realized it was them. There were tubes and needles and all sorts of medical shit coming out of him, and it set Jacob’s teeth on edge even though he knew it was all probably necessary. “Hey, brother,” He croaked. “How you feeling?”  
  
“Eh,” John mumbled, shoulders twitching slightly in a weak shrug.  
  
Joseph smiled, cupped John’s cheek and leaned in to kiss his forehead. “You look much better.” Jacob was tempted to call bullshit, but… Well, John did look a lot less pale now, and his eyes seemed to be clearer than they’d been in the ambulance.  
  
“So, what did… How did this happen?” Jacob asked, gesturing towards John. “Was it the heat?”  
  
“Possibly,” The doctor said with a small shrug. “It could also have been stress, or it could have been random. Drug use can have long-lasting effects on a person’s body, especially the heart, and if it goes untreated it can progress to something more serious like today’s episode. But there doesn’t appear to be any damage to the heart, and so-”  
  
“Do you _really_ need to be on your phone right now?” Joseph interjected, looking past the doctor at a nurse checking John’s vitals. He spoke the words casually, but with an undercurrent of venom that caught everyone off-guard. The doctor turned around and gave the nurse near John’s bed a deadly look when she saw that she had, indeed, discreetly pulled out her cell-phone and had started texting something; the nurse blushed and tucked the phone back into her pocket. _Bad choice, bad timing,_ Jacob thought. Joseph had a notorious hatred of cell-phones and the modern public’s collective addiction to them.  
  
And with John’s health tied into it, Jacob was surprised Joseph hadn’t thrown something at her.  
  
“I’ll let you sit with him for a time,” The doctor said, subtly motioning to the nurse and stepping out of the room.  
  
“Like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation,” Jacob mumbled.  
  
“I’d like to be the one _having_ that conversation,” Joseph grunted. “How disgustingly unprofessional do you have to be to be using your damn cell-phone in a patient’s room with their family there?”  
  
“Joseph,” John rasped, “Don’t piss off the hospital staff until it’s time for me to go home.”  
  
Jacob chuckled, patting John’s hand. “Don’t worry, little brother, we won’t let ‘em piss in your cereal.”  
  
John didn’t say _don’t leave,_ he didn’t say _I don’t want to be alone,_ but even after he fell asleep Jacob and Joseph didn’t move until visiting hours were over and the staff was all but threatening to throw them out. It didn’t occur to Jacob until they were in the lobby that they’d taken the ambulance there, that they didn’t have a way to get back to the compound; Jacob wasn’t a wimp, but it would be at least an hour and a half to walk back and he was fading fast.  
  
“Shit. Guess we’re gonna have to call a cab.”  
  
“Language,” Joseph muttered. Now that John’s continued wellbeing had been confirmed he was back to lecturing Jacob about his foul mouth. “The Sheriff’s office isn’t far from here, we can step inside and call-”  
  
“Father!”  
  
Surprised, they both looked up to see- of all people- Rachel waving to them from the parking lot, standing next to a beat-up Ford Taurus that might very well have been older than her. “Jesus, that girl might be psychic.”  
  
Joseph gave him a look, but wiped it from his face by the time he walked up to Rachel. He offered her praise and thanks for coming to assist and offered her a place at their dinner table that night- evidently she’d been sitting in the parking lot for a while. Rachel accepted the thanks in a considerably less sycophantic way than the usual girls her age who fawned over Joseph; the ones whose devotion was definitely more carnal than pious, if Jacob was being honest. That made him like her all the more, and Jacob lightly clapped Rachel’s shoulder before he got into the car. “Thanks, kid,” he muttered. “You’re a lifesaver.”  
  
She smiled sweetly. “I’m glad to be helpful, Jacob.”  
  
She drove them back to the compound, lapsing into easy conversation with Joseph in the front seat while Jacob tuned out in the back, watching the trees flick past the window. He would go back to the hospital tomorrow, would stick close to John until he was released and keep a sharp eye on him to make sure what happened today wouldn’t be repeated. He would ride John about taking that damn medication and not doing anything that might put him in the emergency room again.  
  
Jacob was going to drive John _batshit_ , and he was okay with that.  
  
He nearly fell asleep in the backseat, and Joseph had to nudge his shoulder when they arrived back at the compound. “You should sleep, Jacob,” Joseph said. “I can bring you food if you want.”  
  
Jacob grunted as he threw the car door open and climbed out on shaky legs. Food was a good idea, but he wasn’t feeling it. “Not hungry.”  
  
“Jacob.” Jacob turned to Joseph; his brother motioned him to come forward, and Jacob did, accepting the hands on his shoulders and the forehead pressed against his own. “John will be fine, Jacob. He’ll be fine. Don’t be too troubled over it.”  
  
Jacob snorted. “I know we’ve been apart for a long time, Joe, but not long enough for you to think I’m not gonna be troubled by this.”  
  
Joseph smiled tiredly. “I know.” He slid his arms around Jacob’s shoulders in a gentle hug, and then stepped away, following Rachel across the quiet compound. Jacob trudged off to his room, so out of it he wouldn’t remember it the next day.  
  
But he would remember his dreams, remember the strangely lucid dream of John sitting on the edge of his bed and poking him awake the way he used to as a kid; and Jacob slept better than he might have.  
   
-End


End file.
